The World Sikh News goes through the an­nals of con­tem­po­rary his­tory of No­vem­ber 1984 through the Sikhtoons of artist Vishavjit Singh, who him­self is a vic­tim-sur­vivor.

No­vem­ber 1984: 33 long years. 33 years of in­jus­tice. 33 years of im­punity. 33 years of In­di­a’s for­get­ful­ness. 33 years of re­mem­brance by Sikhs. 33 years of cam­paign by Amnesty In­ter­na­tional.

As we go through the an­nals of con­tem­po­rary Sikh his­tory, the first week of No­vem­ber will never pass off eas­ily. The week is linked to the car­nage of No­vem­ber 1984. The week re­minds the Sikhs and friends of Sikhs of the days when In­dia be­came an un­civil so­ci­ety with Con­gress party lead­ers and work­ers in­dulging in may­hem, loot and mur­der, rem­i­nis­cent of the stone-age hunt­ing of ri­vals by the stone-age man.

For those who may not re­mem­ber or may not have read, the son of the Big Tree, Ra­jiv Gandhi called her so. He also called the deaths of thou­sands in less than 72 hours as noth­ing but a “calamity”. The fact that he and his ilk en­gi­neered the whole mas­sacre only awaits In­dian ju­di­cial con­fir­ma­tion, the whole world knows about it.

The world com­mu­nity, seized with ter­ror­ism, mass mur­ders, wars and bat­tles across na­tions also knows who the cul­prits were but com­merce en­forced si­lence has granted more im­punity to “the largest democ­racy in the world” to al­low such mas­sacres since then in var­i­ous other parts.

Amnesty In­ter­na­tional, with­out let up con­tin­ues to seek jus­tice in the face of ab­solute for­get­ful­ness of the state ma­chin­ery and is run­ning an in­ter­na­tional cam­paign sup­ported by a few hun­dred thou­sand seek­ers of jus­tice, but In­dia does not lis­ten as it con­sid­ers those days as noth­ing but the falling of a big tree.

Liv­ing through such agony and pain, is not an easy ex­pe­ri­ence, and if you hap­pen to be a vic­tim sur­vivor, it is even more dif­fi­cult. Artist Vishavjit Singh has ex­pe­ri­enced No­vem­ber 1984 and lives it every day. He brings it out on a can­vass in the form of Sikhtoons, pok­ing fun at those who have been mak­ing fun of the Sikhs since decades, giv­ing graphic rep­re­sen­ta­tion to the yearn­ings of the Sikhs and not let­ting go any op­por­tu­nity to look within the com­mu­nity too.

“For­give­ness is a trait of the Almighty but for­get­ful­ness is a trait of the doomed. And we as a peo­ple are un­will­ing to for­get.”

At the com­mem­o­ra­tion meet or­ga­nized by the Sikh Fo­rum nearly a decade ago, the vet­eran so­cial and po­lit­i­cal leader Jaya Jait­ley, who along with oth­ers had worked re­lent­lessly through the Na­grik Ekta Manch dur­ing the dark days of No­vem­ber 1984, said, if that mas­sive pain that con­tin­ues to bother us to this day can gen­er­ate cre­ativ­ity within us, we will be able to re­lieve our­selves and the next gen­er­a­tion from dis­tress and that would be our con­tri­bu­tion to rec­on­cil­i­a­tion and peace.

In putting to­gether his ex­hi­bi­tion of ex­clu­sive car­toons, es­pe­cially fo­cused on 1984, Vishavjit Singh has done just that. He is the Jew among Sikhs, who wants to keep mem­o­ries alive.

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So, while we live through the pain of the wid­ows who still wait for jus­tice, The World Sikh News pub­lishes some of the 1984 car­toons or Sikhtoons of Vishavjit Singh in an at­tempt to tell the world that for­give­ness is a trait of the Almighty but for­get­ful­ness is a trait of the doomed. And we as a peo­ple are un­will­ing to for­get. 

The big tree is call­ing you.